Just the beginning
First voting rights, second Roe v. Wade, next Obergefell v. Hodges We have all heard the cliché that “Elections have consequences,” and we have seen it play out in real time during the 21st century through Supreme Court decisions impacting different groups of Americans.
Let’s look at some of the key decisions: The Bush v. Gore 2000 election decision, which should have been a states’ rights issue, reached the federal level and resulted in 25 electoral votes being awarded to candidate George W.
Bush over Al Gore. I — sarcastically and with disdain — refer to it as “the season of hanging and pregnant chads.” As a regular voter, that decision shook me to the core, and was it then that my faith in our elections system starting to erode.
Then, in 2002, we had Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that essentially opened the floodgates of campaign contributions thanks to an erroneous SCOTUS interpretation asserting corporations, wealthy donors and political action committees could not be constitutionally prohibited from donating unlimited amounts of money to candidates and causes.
